Wielding axes, 'they only wanted to kill'

Survivors of a terrorist attack in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region 12 years ago shared their chilling stories in a special report that was released on Thursday by the Institute for Communication and Borderland Governance at Jinan University in Guangzhou, Guangdong province.

The report, titled Victims and Survivors of Terrorism in China: An Oral History, revealed the harrowing accounts of those who lived through the atrocities that took place on a pedestrian street in Xinjiang's Yecheng county on Feb 28, 2012.

Wang Tiancheng, the owner of a grain and cooking oil shop on Xingfu Road in Yecheng who was critically injured in the attack, recalled the fateful day in the report.

Wang, 60, said he was feeling particularly unwell that day, because he had been in the hospital for a week to receive intravenous fluids. He was standing with his back against the rear door of his shop when terrorists armed with axes and machetes attacked him.

They looked menacing, he recalled.

"Their axes were so big, and the hafts were so long," he said, adding that he was almost certain that he was going to die. "They only wanted to kill, so they attacked anyone they saw, especially the elderly, women and children."

Wang said he sustained grievous head and shoulder injuries in the attack and spent 46 days in a hospital. The local government covered all his medical expenses, which amounted to 20,000 yuan ($2,800).

A doctor who examined his wounds later told him that his collar bone would have been fractured had the machete gone half a centimeter deeper.

He recalled hearing about other atrocities that occurred that day.

"An auxiliary police officer was hacked to death. I heard he was on traffic duty near the rear entrance of Xingfu Road. And a 60-year-old woman was sitting in front of a rice noodle shop across the street when three terrorists broke her jaw," Wang said.

Nine terrorists in three groups attacked people along the pedestrian street. Most of the victims were elderly, sick, disabled or women, he said.